It's not really a matter of opinion here. It's not like the term popped up out of no where a month ago and it's definition went up for grabs.

It means you're able to purchase items that give you a clear cut statistical advantage with real life currency. Hence, pay to win.[COLOR="red"]

SNIP...

It's more on what advantage means and how far you take it.

Getting an exp boost while leveling is technically an advantage, it's not one that is usually considered P2W. You cannot win at leveling in most games. Even if you reach max level first it rarely means anything or anything worth any importance.

But if you can buy flash point and operation gear at max level with real cash and not actually playing the game - Thats considered P2W and looked down on by a great many gamers.

It's even a little more broad if you start taking PVP into account as well.

I broadly define it as being able to purchase anything that will give players a statistical advantage in the game, beyond what can be achieved without money. Certainly you could pay for top-end gear, or pay to be level 50, or pay for a nice set of companion gear, but all of those things can be achieved with in-game gameplay, they might take a long time to do so, but as long as they are reasonably accessible then it's fine.

Personally, I would prefer SWTOR stick to cool visual sets, pets, companion variant-looks and all that sort of vanity stuff. Ideally there shouldn't be a single item for sale with stats on it.

Originally Posted by Masark

People in cars cause accidents. Accidents in cars cause people.

Sometimes life gives you lemons, other times life gives you boobies. Life is always better with more boobies.
Blizzard removed my subscription from WoD's features, it'll be added sometime later.
And thus I give you: MALE contraception!

IMO you have "pay to win" which means items are sold in the cash shop that are far superior to items that can be obtained in game. Then you have "pay to win faster" which means you can obtain any item in game through playing the game, but can purchase the same items or items of similar desire via the cash shop.

"Winning" means accomplishing any task in game that has some kind of reward, recognition or payoff at the end.
To me "Pay to Win" is buying equipment with any kind of +stat, experience gains, pets and mounts where there is an in-game system that recognises and rewards numbers of pets/mounts etc.

If you ding 90 sooner because you paid, that's pay to win
If you get an achievement sooner because you bought 2 pets at the store, that's pay to win.

"Winning" means accomplishing any task in game that has some kind of reward, recognition or payoff at the end.
To me "Pay to Win" is buying equipment with any kind of +stat, experience gains, pets and mounts where there is an in-game system that recognises and rewards numbers of pets/mounts etc.

If you ding 90 sooner because you paid, that's pay to win
If you get an achievement sooner because you bought 2 pets at the store, that's pay to win.

Getting an exp boost while leveling is technically an advantage, it's not one that is usually considered P2W. You cannot win at leveling in most games. Even if you reach max level first it rarely means anything or anything worth any importance.

But if you can buy flash point and operation gear at max level with real cash and not actually playing the game - Thats considered P2W and looked down on by a great many gamers.

It's even a little more broad if you start taking PVP into account as well.

"Winning" means accomplishing any task in game that has some kind of reward, recognition or payoff at the end.
To me "Pay to Win" is buying equipment with any kind of +stat, experience gains, pets and mounts where there is an in-game system that recognises and rewards numbers of pets/mounts etc.

If you ding 90 sooner because you paid, that's pay to win
If you get an achievement sooner because you bought 2 pets at the store, that's pay to win.

Wow, insane. Considering there's no advantage to getting a pet or mount achievement sooner, how is it "pay 2 win"? There's no reward for getting those achievements first, there's no advantage to getting them ahead of anyone else, there's no benefit to getting them today as opposed to tomorrow, so what, exactly, are you "winning" by getting them sooner? Oh, that's right, absolutely NOTHING.

For me personally, Pay to Win means that you can obtain anything, whether its XP, gear, stat increases, etc. that is not obtainable by the general normal account. An Example would be an item ( can be anything really) that you can buy for $5 but lets say that a normal account would take 3-6 months to earn the same thing daily.

Basically for me, selling cosmetics are ok as they do not give any real form of an advantage.

The problem I have with most F2P games isn't because they are Pay to win, its because they are, " Pay so you won't want to gouge your eyes out, go on a killing spree and beat your dog just to get one item ". If someone actually made a F2P game that didn't do that I might actually stop hating on F2P games. They won't though because they want you spending money.

Yes I see Blizzard RMAH as strictly pay to win, even though as of right now there isn't really anything to win.

If someone can buy gear X instead of farming it even if gear X isnt BIS for me that is P2W. XP boosts can be P2W cause it gives a advantage timewise but normaly ppl that buy XP boosts are those that already saw content or dont wana apreciate the leveling curve so for me mostly XP boosts dont mater, On the other hand Valor Points boost are P2W because it could let someone gear faster than the joe that doesnt buy such thing.

Anytime someone pays to individually buy ANY item that is unavailiable to someone else who dosn't/can't get he item.

Yes that even includes "vanity" items.

MMOs are always more then just Raid and PVP competition no matter how many people want to deny it. Some people purely do those things just FOR the vanity items to show off/enjoy.

Saying something like "Vanity items don't affect the game so don't worry about it" seems silly to me. Status, social activities and vanity is a big part of the game, if it wasn't why do the companies even bother to try and keep up with graphics alltogether? If people didn't care then the game should just be blue dots attacking red dots, or there wouldn't be different pets, mounts and alertering glyphs at all.

At least with a subscription it puts everyone on an even playing field as best they can (the company can't very well free up unlimited time in everyones schedule but at least that is an option)

Paying for anything individually gives specific advantages/opportunities to the stupid (including kids using daddies credit cards) and the rich (who i guess can afford to waste money on stupid crap)

Anytime someone pays to individually buy ANY item that is unavailiable to someone else who dosn't/can't get he item.

Yes that even includes "vanity" items.

MMOs are always more then just Raid and PVP competition no matter how many people want to deny it. Some people purely do those things just FOR the vanity items to show off/enjoy.

Saying something like "Vanity items don't affect the game so don't worry about it" seems silly to me. Status, social activities and vanity is a big part of the game, if it wasn't why do the companies even bother to try and keep up with graphics alltogether? If people didn't care then the game should just be blue dots attacking red dots, or there wouldn't be different pets, mounts and alertering glyphs at all.

At least with a subscription it puts everyone on an even playing field as best they can (the company can't very well free up unlimited time in everyones schedule but at least that is an option)

Paying for anything individually gives specific advantages/opportunities to the stupid (including kids using daddies credit cards) and the rich (who i guess can afford to waste money on stupid crap)

But... how does buying a statless, vanity Christmas sweater cause them to "win"? This topic is about "Pay to win" right?

But... how does buying a statless, vanity Christmas sweater cause them to "win"? This topic is about "Pay to win" right?

It's quite clear you have a very narrow and bland definition of winning.

Many people strive to win just for vanity items (i.e. mounts) yet others just bypass the whole process by slinging out daddies credit card or stupidly wasting their own money.

I think you just read the first line then just stopped. I also explained about how, for many, mmos are all about status and showing off, its the main purpose of the game for a great many, essentially meaning they win the attention they strive for. Yet buying the lazy crappy ites just so people can be special allows them to "win" the attention they seek just through slinging out a few bucks.

I think its a severe lack of imagination and depth on all these people who say buying stats is the ONLY way people pay to win.

Also there's just the itching loathing I have for anyone who is stupid enough to pay more then a couple cents for something cosmetic (that the developers spend no time on then sell millions) and also the lazy people who can't cut it or who are too thick to get stats on their own.

People who strive to win just for vanity items are items attained through extra work that others either don't have time for or are incapable of. An example would be Hard Mode only mounts that others cannot get.

Simply purchasing something ANYONE could buy at any given time does not give any sort of extra bragging rights. Things like mounts purchased from the Blizzard Store didn't bring about "bragging". If anything, so many people did it that the mounts became extremely common.

It's quite clear you have a very narrow and bland definition of winning.

Many people strive to win just for vanity items (i.e. mounts) yet others just bypass the whole process by slinging out daddies credit card or stupidly wasting their own money.

I think you just read the first line then just stopped. I also explained about how, for many, mmos are all about status and showing off, its the main purpose of the game for a great many, essentially meaning they win the attention they strive for. Yet buying the lazy crappy ites just so people can be special allows them to "win" the attention they seek just through slinging out a few bucks.

I think its a severe lack of imagination and depth on all these people who say buying stats is the ONLY way people pay to win.

Also there's just the itching loathing I have for anyone who is stupid enough to pay more then a couple cents for something cosmetic (that the developers spend no time on then sell millions) and also the lazy people who can't cut it or who are too thick to get stats on their own.

It's clear you're simply backing up a stubbornly unwavering opinion, here. Perhaps in the future you could work on your wording in scenarios where people don't agree with you. It's also extremely obvious that you're incredibly biased on the subject and even a little bitter. Your ignorant assumptions aside, in your scenario, as much as you're trying to justify your reasoning, you're still not explaining how anyone "won" anything to support the "pay to win" claim.

If I'm broke and can't afford an in game leather jacket, that doesn't mean someone with more money won. That means they bought a jacket. Yay for them. If I'm struggling to up my stats on my warrior, and another warrior pays real money for gear that has stats on it and completes all his tasks much quicker and easier because of it, he's paid to win.

It's not that I don't see your point. Perspective is perspective, after all, but viewpoints aside, only in one of those scenarios did someone actual have a measurable advantage and victory. He paid real money to aquire something that wasn't available without paying that real money. He paid to win.

Pay to win would be say, the best weapon in the available through non pay for it with RL money is say.. 100 - 200 damage +5% crit and 20% attack speed using very very basic stats, but the best weapon you can buy exclusively from the cash shop is 150 - 250 damage, +10% crit and 30% attack speed.

So would we agree, using WOW as an example that you should be able to buy collectors/limited edition pets (panda cubs, mini-diablos, tyraels, golden pigs etc), or time lost proto-drakes, or netherdrakes, nether-rays etc for cash? That something like this could not possibly piss off a lot of people? What about titles? they don't offer any advantages, why CAN'T I buy High Warlord or Grand Marshal?